Chris Hohn Quotes

[In October 2012.] Investments in great businesses with visible, predictable and high free cash flow that is being returned to shareholders.
Chris Hohn

[In February 2013.] A lot of people wrote me off. A lot of people fired us, a few people stuck by us, and we've worked and worked and made it all back for them.
Chris Hohn

[In February 2013.] Hedge funds have been struggling to make money for the last three years, badly. We don't own one Apple share. Every hedge fund owns Apple.
Chris Hohn

[In February 2013 on TCI during the crisis when some people left.] There was a question over me when people left. Who was responsible for [making] the money, me or them? I've answered that question.
Chris Hohn

[In March 2013.] The fund is up this year 23% - so strong returns driven by a lot of activist investing in controversial situations, whether that be News Corporation, Japan Tobacco, Safran all of these complex, difficult situations where others fear to tread.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013 on Coal India.] The government has not raised prices on coal in nearly two-years… As a result with inflation, coal pricing is falling in real terms… It remains a gigantic economic loss for the Indian people, approximately USD 20 billion a year of lost profits, which should be going to the Indian people as the 90 percent shareholder of Coal India.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] It is solely because politically connected companies to the Indian government are receiving fuel supply agreements (FSAs) at half market price or a third of market price for coal. It is a system that encourages corruption because not everybody can get coal at half price so there is a massive incentive for companies to pay bribes in order to get FSA contracts.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] The beneficiaries of cheap coal are not the poor people of India but actually rich industrialists who are willing to pay bribes in order to get the FSA coal at cheap prices.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] The only way you can avoid bribery coming into a system which prices product below market allocated by the government is to price it through an auction.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] In any fund you have some things that win and some others that lose. Our fund has compounded at 18 percent a year for the 10 years that it has been in operation.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] Our fund has been extremely successful around the world and the most disappointing investments that we have made are actually in India. The common theme across all of them is that bad governance causes a poor return for shareholders. India as a stock market needs to clean its act up.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] Why should we invest in India when companies in the Europe, US, Australia, they are run for shareholders and you can find fantastic franchises there that we don’t have to worry whether government will steal the profits not and whether it will be run for shareholders, just don’t need the headache. So, it will be a big deterrent for investors coming to India.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] India has become an unattractive place to invest because the government doesn’t liberalise the economy.
Chris Hohn

[In May 2013.] You have an era of financial repression where governments will hold interest rates negative in real terms for a long time that’s extremely bullish for equities, which are inflation-protected assets. Equities are far more attractive than government bonds and that on both absolute and relative basis.
Chris Hohn

[In July 2013 on whether Alpha is dead.] I don’t believe so. There’s really been no shortage of opportunities and Alpha generation in our view. Since 2010 the fund has returned 18 percent per annum up 22 percent net fees this year.
Chris Hohn

[In July 2013.] We generate alpha through a variety of ways. Firstly understanding the sustainability of business models, understanding models and taking a long-term horizon over which the persistence of high barriers to entry plays out very much in the philosophy of Warren Buffett. Secondly we have a deep sector expertise in some sectors including infrastructure and consumer goods which help us to understand when opportunities are good. Thirdly we run concentrated positions – can be in excess of 10 percent of NAV [Net asset value]. And so by concentrating our capital in a handful of very good ideas where we find the alpha it can mean something and can outperform.
Chris Hohn

[In July 2013.] I’ll mention the issue of being prepared to be activist which is an inefficient space where few people are willing to do that and we’re willing where appropriate to be activists. And so that combination of taking a long-term view, which gives us a time horizon arbitrage, sector expertise, understanding business models, that corporate governance expertise and the concentration. The combination of those factors has allowed us to generate consistently high alpha.
Chris Hohn

[In July 2013 on why the activist space is inefficient.] Firstly where there’s a corporate governance concern investors just seem to stay away completely. They don’t try to say ‘Well what discount should I apply?’ and they just completely stay away. An example is New Corporation where we made a very large investment a couple of years ago during the hacking scandal where the stock traded at extremely cheap valuations – four times operating profits. Was worth triple and it’s because investors said ‘Well I don’t want to invest in a company that has hacking phones who knows what the liability might be’. And we said well we can’t tell if it’s twenty million dollars or ten million dollars but fifty billion dollars was discounted - so it didn’t matter. And so for us there was a price and secondly we understood that there was an inflection point in corporate governance as a result of the scandal where they decided to buy back a lot of shares, break the company up and have a new COO – Chase Carey run the company. There is an inefficiency and also that can be exploited because investors just say that there’s no price. I think of it like the damaged goods section of a department store where you can get 80-90% off even though because most people won’t buy anything that’s damaged. And also hardly any investors will be activist because it’s a reputational issue for them and they think that no company will ever talk to them again. And so there’s a dearth of investors willing to be activist, and so few competitors.
Chris Hohn

[In September 2013 on activist investing.] Few investors want to deal with any company that is facing a corporate governance issue, nor do they want to take on the risks, including the possible public relations gaffes of activist investing.
Chris Hohn

[In November 2013.] Governments are just about the worst owners of companies you can find.
Chris Hohn

Hohn has always been a deep-value investor, a tireless researcher who makes tough and canny judgments. Loch Adamson

Mr. Hohn is known for leading a relatively simple lifestyle. He lives in a rented home, drives a Prius and wears a black Swatch watch he has had for years. Juliet Chung

[On Chris Hohn in June 2008.] London’s most powerful hedge hog. The Telegraph

[In March 2009.] He leads a very modest lifestyle. He is not interested in clothes, cars, houses or watches. He wears a £10 watch - the plainest black Swatch that he probably got free with a can of petrol. He takes the Tube to and from work. He is almost Amish in his plainness. One former colleague

[In June 2008 on Chris Hohn and philanthropy.] We work well together – he is passionate about helping, I’m more pragmatic about it. Jamie Cooper-Hohn